The Energy-Efficient Porcelain Factory

200 million people in more than 100 countries eat off porcelain products from BHS tabletop AG every day. This long-established company from Selb, in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, is the global market leader in professional porcelain with its Bauscher, Tafelstern and Schönwald brands and sells around 40 million pieces of tableware a year to the catering industry, hotels, airlines, shipping lines, corporate cafeterias, chain restaurants, retirement homes and hospitals. The company, which grew out of the former Hutschenreuther AG, employs around 1,150 people at its three sites in Selb, Weiden and Schönwald. Since firing porcelain requires a lot of energy, climate and environmental protection are of paramount importance to BHS. In order to keep the energy actually required as low as possible and use it for several purposes at the same time, the company has fundamentally altered its production, reducing energy consumption by a third over the past 15 years. This also enabled it to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in production.